The Wrong Kind of Immortality

After separating from Orestis, Eirene walked through the temple district with Eleuthera.

“So, what did you want to show me?” Eirene asked the goddess.

“This,” Eleuthera said and waved a hand, opening a small viewing fold beside them.

Eirene immediately glanced at the pedestrians moving past them. There were no second glances or startled looks—and it wasn’t just because Nomyra was used to miracles.

“They can’t see it,” Eleuthera confirmed. “It is only visible to you.”

That was consistent with Eleuthera’s preferences; she enjoyed her anonymity among the general public. Selectively restricting who could see her conjurations was a clever approach. Eirene wondered how that could be achieved without relying on divine intervention.

Making a mental note to revisit it later, she turned her attention to the viewing fold. Through it, she saw a patch of forest floor where afternoon light slipped through the dense canopy. There, in the shadow at the base of a fallen log, sat a small black kitten.

Or at least, it looked like a kitten. Its luminous green eyes glowed with a light of their own, and although it wasn’t moving, the shadows around it were. They shifted with each flick of its tail, as though following its lead.

“What do you think?” Eleuthera asked.

Eirene watched it for a moment. It was clearly some kind of magical creature—that much was obvious. Cute, too. She had always liked cats—their quiet confidence, the way they moved through the world on their own terms, unbothered by anything that didn’t concern them. There was something honest in that kind of independence.

“Very cute. What is it?”

“A mauthet. They’re native to the demon continent and feed on shadows saturated with dark-aligned mana. This one stumbled through a spatial anomaly—a random rift that closed behind it. Now it’s stranded.”

Eirene immediately felt a twinge of sympathy for the creature. It had been pulled out of its world without warning, left to fend for itself in a place that wasn’t made for it. She understood that, more than she would have expected.

“Why haven’t you sent it back?” she asked.

“Because,” Eleuthera said, “mauthets are wonderful companions. Intelligent, loyal, fiercely protective of anyone they bond with.” She paused. Smiled. “I wanted to know if you’d like to keep it first. If you don’t, I can send it back.”

Eirene looked at her, surprised. “That’s... an option?”

Eleuthera’s smile widened. “Should I take that as interest?”

Her gaze flicked back to the image—those green eyes, the careful stillness, the shadows responding to the flick of a tail. The idea of keeping it wasn’t just appealing—it felt right in a way she couldn’t fully articulate. This was something that could be hers alone: a creature she chose, and that chose her.

There were also the stories she’d grown up reading. As a child, she’d always wanted a magical pet. This felt like the fulfilment of that dream.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to keep it.”

“I had a feeling you would,” Eleuthera said, looking quite proud of herself. She closed the viewing fold, then she raised a finger. “Before you commit, you should know a few things. As adorable as it is, the mauthet is still a magical predator. It can weaponise any shadow in its line of sight—turning them solid and using them to attack.”

Eirene frowned. “How does that make them viable as companions?”

“They’re intelligent and perceptive. Once bonded, they won’t attack anyone they consider part of their pack—or anyone close to their bonded person. They’re remarkably good at distinguishing between threats and non-threats.” Eleuthera smiled. “But until the bonding is complete, you should keep up a shield when you’re near it. Just in case.”

That was reasonable.

“And the bonding process?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Eleuthera waved it off. “All you need to do is feed it. It will bond with you after a few times.”

Eirene eyed the goddess sceptically. Sometimes, she could sound really unreliable. This was one of those times. “I’d like a more comprehensive explanation.”

Eleuthera tsked. “You’re picking up bad habits from Orestis. You should trust in your goddess more.”

Eirene folded her arms and stared silently at the goddess, doing her best to channel her inner Orestis. She saw Eleuthera’s lips twitch as she tried to hold back a smile. The goddess managed a few seconds before breaking out in a grin.

“Fine,” Eleuthera said. “Mauthets bond through association and trust. I’ve been feeding this one invisibly since I first found it, secretly saturating shadows with profane divine power—that’s much more nutritious than plain dark-aligned mana.”

And Eirene could also draw profane power if she wanted to. She could see where this was going.

“So, it already trusts the food source,” Eirene said. “You want me to saturate a shadow in front of it so it links that source to me.”

“Exactly. Simple, right?”

It was simple. But there was one other issue. “Which god should I draw from? I don’t want to choose someone dangerous by mistake.”

“Use the same reservoir Orestis has been using. It belongs to Somnax,” Eleuthera said, then demonstrated how to mix divine power into a shadow. She used a shadow cast by an archway.

The technique looked simple enough: steady channelling, dispersed into the shadow just so, and held until saturation.

“You don’t need to saturate the whole shadow. Just a portion is enough. The important part is the volume,” she explained. After she was done, the goddess said, “You can sense how much I used, right?”

Eirene nodded, then reached for the unfamiliar reservoir—and found it easily. The power felt fundamentally different from Eleuthera’s—dense, dark, opposite in character. Not hostile; just the other side of the same coin.

She had been a bit reticent about touching profane power, but apart from the… flavour, the mechanics felt no different than wielding Eleuthera’s power. The alignment changed the texture of it, but not the technique.

Eirene tried saturating the shadow at her feet. Honestly, this required less effort than trying to pin a spindle hydra using only her gravity spell. She got it right on the first try.

“Yes. That works,” Eleuthera said, sounding satisfied. “Now let’s go meet your new friend.”

Eirene suppressed the flash of anticipation and waited for the goddess to open a gate. Instead, the world simply shifted around her, causing her to feel a moment of vertigo before she caught herself.

They were suddenly inside a forest—the same one from the viewing fold. She recognised the broad-canopied trees and the thick ferns around them.

Teleportation was not something she had experienced before, mostly because the gates served a similar purpose. And Orestis had once mentioned how teleportation was the riskier option for travel on account of not being able to see the destination point.

Now that she’d experienced the transition, Eirene decided she did indeed prefer to use gates. There was no disorientation, and she could see where she was about to step in before changing location.

However, that brief moment of vertigo was unacceptable. She would have to practise teleportation until that no longer happened.

She reinforced her shield and followed Eleuthera along a narrow gap between the trees. The forest was quiet—not the peaceful kind, but the watchful kind. It was the silence of a place where something was paying attention.

After a short walk—a minute at most—Eleuthera slowed. Eirene looked ahead, and saw it.

The mauthet was smaller than she had expected from the viewing fold. She hadn’t been entirely wrong to think of it as a kitten when she first saw it—it was about the same size.

It was even more adorable in person—and a bit frightening. Not because it looked dangerous, but because of what surrounded it: tendrils of shadow rising from the ground around its body, swaying like grass in a current.

Eirene recognised it as a warning display. The creature was scared. Its body was tensed and low, eyes fixed directly on them.

Something in Eirene’s chest tightened. It was so small. And alone.

“Choose a shadow halfway between us,” Eleuthera said quietly.

They had stopped the moment the kitten came into view, so as not to agitate it further. Eirene chose a suitable shadow—a patch of darkness cast by a broad fern—and channelled profane divine power steadily into it.

The mauthet noticed immediately. Its head lifted. Those green eyes widened, pupils dilating as they locked onto the saturated shadow. Then they moved—from the shadow to Eirene. Back to the shadow. Back to Eirene.

She could see the intelligence working. This was not a simple animal reacting to stimulus. It was thinking—connecting the food to the person, weighing risk against hunger, calculating whether this was safe.

Eirene stayed still. She understood this kind of patience—the kind where you waited for someone else to decide you were worth trusting. You couldn’t rush it; you could only be present and let them come to their own conclusion.

The mauthet hesitated. Took a single step forward. Stopped.

Then it sank into the shadow beneath the fallen log.

Eirene blinked. She hadn’t expected that. Shadow manipulation, yes. But to actually sink itself physically into the shadow? That was something else entirely.

She immediately thought of the familiar, futile exercise of trying to catch a cat that didn’t want to be caught. That had always looked like a hassle. With this one, it would be genuinely impossible. The thought made her smile.

From the shadow beside the one she had saturated, a small head slowly emerged, ears flattened. The mauthet remained half-hidden, with only its face visible, eyes darting between the food and Eirene.

It looked so cute doing that!

Then, a tendril of shadow stretched outward from the saturated patch, resembling a tentacle rising from the sea’s surface. Eirene could sense the profane power gathering towards the tip.

The mauthet quickly lunged and bit the tendril, snapping it free. It retreated immediately, sinking back into the shadow and reappearing at its original position beneath the log.

It chewed slowly while watching her. Perhaps she was imagining it, but it seemed less tense than before.

The shadow tendrils around its body had disappeared the moment it sank into the shadow. Now they were absent—the mauthet was no longer using them as a warning. Its ears were still flat, but its body had uncurled slightly from the tight coil it had held when they first arrived.

It had eaten from her. It had connected the food to her face. And it had decided, at least for now, that she was not a threat worth fleeing from.

It wasn’t trust. Not yet. But it was the space where trust could grow. That was enough for now.

Eleuthera also seemed to agree. “Good. That’s enough for today,” she said quietly.

Eirene wanted to stay longer. The impulse surprised her—she was not usually the type to linger when a task was complete. But this didn’t feel complete; it felt like the beginning of something. She smiled, deciding it was a good thing—she would be back. Soon.

She nodded to Eleuthera and the world shifted. She found herself back in Nomyra once more. Once the moment of vertigo passed, she turned to the goddess.

“Would that be enough? The food, I mean—it barely had a mouthful.” Right after she said it, Eirene found herself smiling at the absurdity of referring to a god’s power as food.

Eleuthera also smiled, likely picking up on the thought. “It doesn’t seem like much, I know. But quality matters. With that much profane divine power, twice a day is all it needs to eat.”

Eirene thought about that and nodded. It made sense. This was power from a god—it would be potent.

“What does it look like when they bond?” she asked, curious about the process—about what she should expect when the time came.

“They follow you home,” Eleuthera said. “And then they never leave.”

Eirene blinked. That seemed… underwhelming. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed. “That’s it?”

“What? Did you expect magical circles or lights from the sky?” the goddess asked, amused. “It’s not a mage to cast spells.”

That was reasonable, but Eirene still felt like there should be more when bonding with a magical creature. The stories had always made such things seem, well, grander. Some kind of ritual, or mutual recognition maybe.

Still, she knew that she shouldn’t expect childhood stories to reflect reality.

“If it makes you feel better,” Eleuthera continued, “they do create a link with the shadows of those they are bonded to. Unless the distance is too far, they will always be able to return to the shadows of their bonded. And they can sense threats to their bonded through the shadow as well. It’s one of the many reasons mauthets are among the most sought-after pets on the demon continent.”

A shadow bond. One where it was always able to find her and sense danger. That was more than a pet. That was a guardian that lived in the space between light and dark, bound to her by choice rather than compulsion.

Yes, now that was suitably magical. She could accept that. Eirene smiled. She was already looking forward to going back.

“Now then,” the goddess said. “Orestis looks like he’s going to be busy for the rest of the day. So—shall we go shopping?”

Eirene agreed. She hadn’t really checked the markets yet.

She still had to get things for the house in Orthessa. It was currently quite bare.

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